Hi toilet!!
Remember the part about how happy I was yesterday just wandering around eating food? And remember the part about how for the past five months life has acted like nothing more than a schoolyard bully, grabbing any small happiness right out of my hands and shoving me down on the ground? These two facts met explosively last night somewhere around 12:30am.
In between shaking, sweating and stumbling to the bathroom, I had plenty of opportunities for feverish self-pity. “Oh great, this is fun. Gee I’m really, really glad I left behind my miserable life in Los Angeles because this is soooo much better.” Aside from the sarcasm, there was a lot of, you know, oh poor me all alone in the world vomiting with no one to take care of her.
In retrospect, I should’ve seen this episode coming. I’ve broken almost every cardinal rule of Eating on the Road in the past few days – I’ve eaten salads and peeled fruits, and had drinks with ice in them. I know better than this, I really do. I was basically asking to have fluids spewing out both ends of my body (and yes, you’re welcome for the visual). Just goes to show that knowing what not to do doesn’t help much if you’re going to carry on and do it anyway.
My first instinct was to reach for the antibiotics my travel clinic sent me with in case of just such an emergency. But on second thought, if I’m going to be in-country for a long time, eating recklessly then grabbing for antibiotics at the first sign of trouble is not going to be a sustainable plan. Also, since I’m the sort of person who only learns lessons the hard way, I figured I should go all the way through this so that maybe I’ll think a little more carefully next time before ordering one of those lovely chicken salads with – gasp – lettuce. I decided that if the fever seemed to be getting too high or if this carried on for more than two days, then I would take the antibiotics, but otherwise, I was getting my just desserts.
It’s now about 17 hours later and although the very idea of eating is enough to double me over, I am semi-functional. Plus I got lots of noises made over me by the nice ladies downstairs when I went to get a couple of Sprites. A lesson learned and sympathy garnered – all’s well that ends well.
Tags: Chiang Mai, Thailand
sandra_101
Recommendation: Take the antibiotics now. Tropical stomach bugs can seem to go away, and then stick around for, like, the rest of your life. I know several people who were on the road in India and were either too natural or too poor to take antibiotics. 25 years later, they still can’t digest their dinner, and fill the room with sulphurous gas. The key to not joining their stinky (but let’s admit it, SKINNY) ranks is to take the antibiotics before the bugs have a chance to settle in. That means now.
This has been a private service announcement from your Minister of Total Paranoia.
In other, extremely important news, my favorite author is dying: http://www.boingboing.net/2006/10/03/robert_anton_wilson_.html
PS – Have you read “Infinite Jest”? I’m only about 15 pages in, but somehow it’s screaming to me that you might really enjoy it.
PSS – I went to Chango and dicked around yesterday, drinking coffee while trying to deal with a hangover. A shaky, nauseous, hammer-headache and you feel like your’re going to die hangover. Deal in this case means to experience as much discomfort and pain as possible, and somehow enjoying it. Case in point, I listened to “The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey’s Grave” on the way home. Anyway, you weren’t there, and I guessed you probably wouldn’t be walking in the door while I was there. Viola — pain increased.